Essay on a Hero - Frodo Baggins

[Ennui_Incarnate]

Can anyone help me with specific references of Frodo exhibiting the characteristics of a hero as defined here: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d46/...qualities.html

[Lizra]

You could go to The Barrow Downs http://forum.barrowdowns.com/ and do a search. They get pretty into it all.
Micheal Martinez has great essays about all kind of stuff, he wrote Parma Endorion, http://www.michael-martinez.com/book..._endorion.html
Visualizing Middle-earth,
and others at http://www.merp.com/essays/MichaelMartinez/
more here..... http://www.sf-fandom.com/site_map.html

[snowy]

I would recommend looking at Lord Raglan's list of hero elements. I found a website with his list and Joseph Campbell's list. Lord Raglan and Campbell will give you a good idea of how Frodo is the archetypal hero (and so is Aragorn, for that matter).

http://www.hi.is/~terry/Heroes.htm

[OzOz]

Number 11 from Alfred Nutt's list (on onesnowyowl's link) made me laugh: "He aquires supernatural knowledge through eating a magic fish."

Also, I'd question one of the definitions on the list that Ennui is working from. Courage is defined there as "that firmness of spirit and swell of soul which meets danger without fear". By that definition, Frodo is definitely NOT a hero - it's plain at several points in the book that he's almost scared witless. As Sam says in "The Breaking Of The Fellowship", "But he's afraid. Now it's come to the point, he's just plain terrified. That's what his trouble is. Of course he's had a bit of schooling, so to speak - we all have - since we left home, or he'd be so terrified that he'd just fling the Ring in the River and bolt. But he's still too frightened to start."

I think the problem is with the definition of courage, because it's just plain out of whack. Courage is not about having no fear. It's about facing something, DESPITE your fears - and by that measure, Frodo exhibits loads of courage.